The present invention relates to a removable grip which can be fitted to existing golf club grips, according to the preamble of claim 1, and which in particular is adapted to the correct position of the fingers of the two hands of the player addressing the ball, that is to say when the hands are holding a golf club during the preparation and execution of the swing.
In known manner golf clubs have a heavy end provided with a face for striking the ball, a shaft of variable diameter which ends in a handle, generally covered with a nonslip material and sometimes marked with a reference line extending from the bottom end of the nonslip material to the end of the club remote from the heavy end.
It is known that instructors of this sport use in their equipment a utensil which is useful to beginners, but only to beginners, this utensil comprising a handle or grip provided with hollows corresponding to the optimum positions of the fingers of the two hands and, in a complementary arrangement, with protuberances corresponding to the gaps between fingers and hereinafter referred to as ribs.
These utensils are used only during the very early lessons, and the instructor quickly passes to so-called practice exercises performed with real clubs having a conventional grip consisting of a handle covered with a nonslip material, followed by exercises on a real course.
This entails disadvantages for novice players:
too brief or incomplete apprenticeship in the correct positioning of the fingers,
the acquirement of bad habits once the first lessons have been forgotten or are imperfectly assimilated,
a consequent deterioration of performance with all clubs having a conventional grip consisting of a handle covered with a nonslip material.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 1,664,257 (McCullough) describes a process for converting a golf club having a normal smooth grip into a grip having hollows and ribs adapted to the position of the fingers. Nevertheless, this process necessitates the sacrificing of a club in order to replace the grip definitively, which is a disadvantage. Removable golf club grips fitted over a smooth grip, such as that described in the documents U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,869,511 or 4,878,667, serve other purposes, such as for example increasing the weight of the grip or protecting it, and do not contribute towards better positioning of the fingers.